Storytelling
is play. When we play with dolls, we pretend to walk, and talk, and act,
like the figures in our hands. We might be telling a story about soldiers
fighting, or we might be having a tea party, or, perhaps, we are going
on adventures to faraway times and places. We don't need to have a beginning,
middle, and end to our story. The fun of playing by ourselves is in making
sounds and gestures, in putting ourselves inside the characters' thoughts
and feelings.

When we tell a story,
however, our play must include the audience/listener. So we do follow
the outline of beginning, middle, and end. We fill in details of seeing,
hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching. We paint the picture of the
setting, time, and feelings of the story with descriptive words. We let
the words of the story affect our voices and bodies so that our voices
and gestures begin to seem as if we were in the middle of the story, as
if we were there. We become all the characters, and the audience/listener
delights in watching us play with words.

To tell a story is
to be in the story with our own personal way of playing. Don't try to
duplicate some other person's way of doing voices or movements. Some storytellers
stand very still, and some of us are very animated. Some of us use funny
voices, and some of us speak simply as ourselves. Everyone must start
as who they are and let the action and the description of the story inspire
us to play. There is no right or wrong way to tell a story except to be
ourselves, relax, and have fun with the pleasure of sharing a story.